e
town. This last checkmate, so evidently mortifying, was of a nature to
drive her into some extreme action; for persons deficient in mind find
difficulty in getting out of any path, either good or evil, into which
they have entered.

Each of the two old bachelors had fully understood the situation in
which Mademoiselle Cormon was about to find herself; consequently,
each resolved to call in the course of that morning to ask after her
health, and take occasion, in bachelor language, to "press his point."
Monsieur de Valois considered that such an occasion demanded a
painstaking toilet; he therefore took a bath and groomed himself with
extraordinary care. For the first and last time Cesarine observed him
putting on with incredible art a suspicion of rouge. Du Bousquier, on
the other hand, that coarse republican, spurred by a brisk will, paid
no attention to his dress, and arrived the first.

Such little things decide the fortunes of men, as they do of empires.
Kellerman's charge at Marengo, Blucher's arrival at Waterloo, Louis
XIV.'s disdain for Prince Eugene, the rector of Denain,--all these
great causes of fortune or catastrophe history has recorded; but no
one ever profits by them to avoid the small neglects of their own
life. Consequently, observe what happens: the Duchesse de Langeais
(see "History of the Thirteen") makes herself a nun for the lack of
ten minutes' patience; Judge Popinot (see "Commission in Lunacy") puts
off till the morrow the duty of examining the Marquis d'Espard;
Charles Grandet (see "Eugenie Grandet") goes to Paris from Bordeaux
instead of returning by Nantes; and such events are called chance or
fatality! A touch of rouge carefully applied destroyed the hopes of
the Chevalier de Valois; could that nobleman perish in any other way?
He had lived by the Graces, and he was doomed to die by their hand.
While the chevalier was giving this last touch to his toilet the rough
du Bousquier was entering the salon of the desolate old maid. This
entrance produced a thought in Mademoiselle Cormon's mind which was
favorable to the republican, although in all other respects the
Chevalier de Valois held the advantages.

"God wills it!" she said piously, on seeing du Bousquier.

"Mademoiselle, you will not, I trust, think my eagerness importunate.
I could not trust to my stupid Rene to bring news of your condition,
and therefore I have come myself."

"I am perfectly recovered," she replied, in a tone of e